Unit 3

Question 1

What is operationalism and logical positivism?

Answer 1

Traditionally, positivists took an extremely imperial stance, the only knowledge you could derive from natural phenomenon were from observable events. The logical positivists took this one step further and said that you could admitted abstract ideas into psychology, believing that the observable and theoretical could be closely linked - through operationalism. Operationalism was that scientific concepts were not to be defined in absolute terms, but in with reference to the operations used to measure them.

Question 2

What are operational Definitions?

Answer 2

precise descriptions of the procedures for measurements and for specifying the variable. These allowed psychologists to study seemingly invisible concepts

Question 3

What did Bridgman refer to as ‘pseudoprobems’?

Answer 3

Questions that were interesting, but were unanswerable by means of scientific observation.

Question 4

What were considered problems with the use of operational definitions?

Answer 4

Psychologists couldn’t agree on the ‘best’ operational definition for the term, and according to Bridgman the meaning of a concept does not go beyond the operation used to describe it. So in this case different operational definitions are supposedly studying different phenomenon

Question 5

What are the advantages of operational definitions?

Answer 5

Replication: if the terms are defined well enough, then other researchers are able to replicate the experiment - this is something that wasn’t able to be done with introspection
Converging Operations: That our understanding of a phenomenon is enhanced if several different researchers are studying it using different operational definitions that converge on the same basic conclusion

Question 6

What ideas do neobehviourists have in common?

Answer 6

(1) They took advantage of the evolutionary assumption of continuity among species. (2) That learning (conditioning) was central to understanding behaviour - leaning heavily towards the nurture end of the nature-nurture

Question 7

Molar vs. Molecular Approach to behviour? Which did Tolman emphasize?

Answer 7

Molar - looking at the whole picture, and molecular, looking at the individual events that make up that behaviour - dissecting it down to it’s simplest sensations. Tolman emphasized the molar approach - broad patterns of behaviour directed at the same goal - these ideas were taken from gestalt psychology

Question 8

What results did Tolman’s student find with rats swimming in a maze that support a molar approach?

Answer 8

that it understands it as a whole and responds to the maze in terms of whole behavioural patterns and meaning beyond the component movements. That it creates a cognitive map of the environment as a whole

Question 9

What was the importance of goal-directiveness for Tolman?

Answer 9

This was a universal feature the behaviour that we learn - it is all directed towards some goal

Question 10

What did Tolman mean by purposiveness?

Answer 10

goal-directivness - it was used a descriptive not causal - it was used to describe the behaviour

Question 11

What are intervening Variables?

Answer 11

hypothetical factors that are not seen directly but are inferred from the manner in which independent and dependent variables are operationally defined - they are assumed to intervene between stimulus and behaviour in a way that influences behaviour

Question 12

What were referred to as sign Gestalts?

Answer 12

The relationship between the cues and the animals expectations about what would happen if they chose path A instead of Path B

Question 13

For Tolman, what did ‘expectancies’ have to do with rats exploring and learning mazes?

Answer 13

As it encountered certain areas of the maze it would come to learn environmental cues and that these cues were associated with certain outcomes

Question 14

What makes a measurement reliable?

Answer 14

That any repeated measures yield approximately the same results.

Question 15

What is the phenomenon of latent learning?

Answer 15

affected performance. This was what reinforcement acted on - the mouse would learn the maze whether there was food at the end. So this automatic learning of the maze was what he referred to as latent learning, because it is happening under neither the surface - without direct influence on the performance

Question 16

What are cognitive maps and what role do they have in learning a maze?

Answer 16

the overall knowledge of the maze structure and spacial pattern - the mice learn to understand the overall orientation of the maze - allowing them to take shortcuts when alternative routes are given

Question 17

What criticisms were directed against Tolman?

Answer 17

His emphasis on purposiveness and heavy use of mentalistic variables, that there were too many intervening cognitive factors.

Question 18

What is Tolman’s Field Theory?

Answer 18

learning did not involve the strengthening and weakening of connections, but more like a map control room, in which the animal gradually acquired a cognitive map of the environment

Question 19

What evidence did Tolman have for these cognitive maps?

Answer 19

When the mice learnt a maze - they learned where the food was. When presented with the same maze (only with extra pathways) instead of using the same pathway the learnt before, the mice would choose the pathway that was the shortest distance to the food

Question 20

What distinguished Type S conditioning from Type R conditioning (aka operant conditioning)

Answer 20

Type S-conditioning = pavlovian model (associating formed between two stimuli) and Type R- Conditioning is operant conditioning behaviour is emitted and a consequence and the future behaviour is determined by those consequences

Question 21

Why did skinner use the word ‘operant’ in his model of learning?

Answer 21

the behaviour ‘operates’ on the environment, when the behaviour happens, it produces a predictable outcome

Question 22

What was an operant chamber? (aka Skinner Box)

Answer 22

a chamber with a small lever on one wall that can be pressed by the rat and food would be released. There was electrical that delivered the negative consequence. Rate of response was recoded

Question 23

How was the Skinner Box used to investigate operant conditioning

Answer 23

1

Question 24

What were conditioning phenomena of generalization and differentiation (aka discrimination)

Answer 24

generalization: behaviour occurring in one environment and in a similar environment as well
Differentiation: Conditioning the rat to only press the bar when the light is on (so they didn’t press the bar when the light wasn’t on)

Question 25

What did skinner refer to as as stimulus control?

Answer 25

The environment in which the behaviour is reinforced comes to exert control on the behaviour

Question 26

What was Skinners inductive approach to conducting research?

Answer 26

studying examples of behviour and looking for regularities that could become general principals.

Question 27

What are schedules of reinforcement?

Answer 27

how different laps in time between reinforcement could predict/ influence reinforcement of behaviour

Question 28

What are explanatory fictions?

Answer 28

The tendency to propose some hypothetical internal factor mediating between observable stimuli and measurable behaviours and then later to use the factor as a pseudo-explanation for the behaviour

Question 29

What was skinners attitudes towards such ‘private’ events as thinking, memory, and language?

Answer 29

that they too could be studied scientifically because they are human behaviours and therefore subject to conditioning

Question 30

What is known as Project Pigeon?

Answer 30

Skinners first attempt to develop a behavioural technology - pigeons were trained to fire missiles at a target, but the military scrapped the project

Question 31

What did Breland’s find that was so damaging to conditioning techniques?

Answer 31

That if the animals were asked to perform/ act in a way that went against their instinctual way of behaving that instinct would take over and the animal would not be able to be conditioned to that behaviour

Question 32

Why was behaviouralism not widely influential in Europe?

Answer 32

The europeans focused more on observable behaviour in natural environment and were not as interested in applicability as the Americans were.

Question 33

What types of expertise comprised the ‘Boulder model’? What did this model become to be known as?

Answer 33

(1) experts at diagnosing mental disorders, (2) skilled psychotherapists, (3) able to complete high-quality empirical research. This became known as the scientist-practitionar model.

Question 34

What impact did Eysenck’s 1952 study have on psychoanalysis?

Answer 34

That the more psychotherapy a patient received the more less likely they were to recover - there were some problems with his methodology, but the damage was done and in the 50’s people began looking for alternative ways to treat patients

Question 35

How did Systematic desensitization work?

Answer 35

Did this with phobia, he conditioned an animal to be afraid of something, then to desensitize he began to do something positive in a room that look like the original room, then in another room that looked more similar, and so on.

Question 36

What ideals about human behaviour did humanistic psychologists criticize?

Answer 36

that human behaviour could be reduced to suppressed biological instincts or simple conditioned reflexes and that their past histories constrained what their futures would look like.

Question 37

What is self-actualization?

Answer 37

to reach one’s full potential in life - humanistic psychologists believed this was what characterized humans - free will and sense of responsibility and purpose.

Question 38

What was the value in studying self-actualization? How did Maslow study it?

Answer 38

This would produce a healthier psychology - the basis of a more universal psychology. Identified historical figures who seemed to be self actualized and then looked for commonalities between them. They perceived reality correctly, highly independent, and creative, spontaneous and natural around others - thought of their work/career as a calling, and had a strong moral code and would occasionally have moments of intense enjoyment.

Question 39

What are peak experiences?

Answer 39

These are memoirs of intense enjoyment or satisfaction that those who were self-actualized experienced.

Question 40

What are the three components of client-centered therapy?

Answer 40

therapist needed to create a therapeutic environment. The therapist must be genuine and honest, accept the client as a person, and empathy - being able to understand the client.

Question 41

What did Roger’s think regarding the therapeutic environment and all other forms of human relationship?

Answer 41

that once it was achieved that clients would show a healthier psyche with less neuroses. This could extend to all human relationships that these therapeutic environments would create space where people could thrive and be healthy.

Question 42

Why did the client entered therapy become popular among clinical psychologists?

Answer 42

it was easier to grasp conceptually and it actually seemed to help people. It was also based on a more optimistic ability for humans to change.

Question 43

What wee barriers for the advancement of women in psychology?

Answer 43

Lack of acceptance into graduate programs and into scientific communities.

Question 44

What impact id anti-nepotism rules have for Eleanor Gibson?

Answer 44

It disallowed her from getting a job at Cornell university because she was married to a professor there.

Question 45

What studies were known as the ‘doll studies’?

Answer 45

tested school aged children as to whether they preferred white or black children by asking their preference in dolls.

Question 46

What are some trends in contemporary psychology?

Answer 46

brain and behaviour, return of evolutionary thinking, changes in research through use of computers, increased professionalization, increased fragmentation of psychology

Question 47

what could be seen as a unifying force in the fragmentation of psychology?

Answer 47

psychologies history - having a common root system, in using the analogy of a tree.